Sunday 27 September 2015

A very sanitised version of


Blurb:
Former mean girl Dixie Davis is back in town and it's payback time.  Literally.  Dixie is flat broke and her est-mate that only-friend, Landon, is throwing her a lifeline from the Great Beyond.  Dixie stands to inherit his business ... if she meets a few conditions:
She's got to live in Landon's mansion.
Wither her gorgeous ex-fiance, Caine Donovan.
Who could also inherit the business.
Which is a phone sex empire.
Wait, what?
Landon's will lays it out:  whoever gets the most new clients becomes the owner of Call Girls.  Dixie has always been in it to win it, especially when it comes to Caine, who's made it clear he's nt going down easy. (Oh mercy.) Can Dixie really talk dirty and prove she's cleaned up her act?  Game on


Review:
I have not read this author before but would welcome the opportunity to read the remaining books in this series.  But I must confess that the title is slightly misleading.

I am grateful for the author stating that this was an ‘homage’ to the TV series ‘Hart of Dixie’ but with a twist.  The TV show’s influence is clearly evident in this novel.  Lou is definitely Lemon, and Dixie is definitely Dr Hart.  Although I am not sure who Caine is; unless he is the bar tender!

I live in a small village in North Africa and understand how difficult it could be to try to change people’s perceptions of oneself; even years later as one’s previous actions become set in stone.  The old adage that it takes a lifetime to gain a good reputation but only a minute to ruin it is never truer.

The main protagonist has his fingers in all the pies even from his grave as it was he who set the competition in his will.  From the forward story we learn that Caine is as lovely (as he is meant to be) so why on earth did she ever leave him?  If he was as lovely as he was meant to be and as much in love with Dixie as portrayed why did he fall at the first hurdle?  It just showed his lack of character. 

Initially I was not particularly drawn to Dixie, which is obviously the author’s intention.  Yet the antics between the fantastic duo left me laughing out loud and yet there wass still a certain amount of pain evident in Dixie’s actions.  It is lovely to see how the heroine grows throughout the course of the book yet (and I don’t want to give the game away) …  For this reader the BIG reveal was not so BIG as she worked it out at the initial telephone call.

Although this is a love story between Caine and Dixie (I will not spoil the outcome for future readers) it is also a story of how Dixie deals with historic assumptions about her.  And how she tries to chance these; and she tried really hard to do so for the future (however, the deep south of America has long (and I mean long) memories).

The one character I did love was Sanjeev who seemed to know exactly was going on at every moment and even dropped the odd ambiguous hint to the key characters when they were too far off track.  I loved his ‘isms’ as he was not a native English speaker and these were often golden highlights.

Even though most of the characters have inexplicable flaws to their character (see the history of Dixie and Caine), I would love to find out how this series develops.  The author’s style of writing is very readable and does not tax one’s grey matter.

Full Disclosure: I received a free copy from Netgalley for an honest review.

I rated this 4 stars on Netgalley and 'I really liked it' on Amazon (4 stars) and Goodreads (4 stars).

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